Shovelling cowpats on a blind date, running around a desert island in limited swimwear, squeezing your wife's spots on a crowded Thai bus or panicking over the consistency of a crème brulee.

French reality TV might look like a laugh for its rising stars, but exhausted contestants are staging a rebellion, demanding huge cash compensation for being endlessly bossed around by producers.

A series of legal battles threaten to force French production companies to pay out hundreds of thousands of euros to reality TV participants who argue that acting natural, looking effortlessly sexy and taking part in absurd challenges is actually hard work.

In a test case, the Versailles appeals court has begun considering how much money should be awarded to participants of L'Île de la Tentation, the French version of Temptation Island, in which couples are separated and then tempted with poolside eye-candy to test their relationship.

The six-year courtroom saga has already set legal precedent when judges ruled in 2009 that appearing in French reality shows constituted work and that participants should get an employment contract.

Now the appeals court must rule on how much money the formerly unknown participants should get.

A total of 57 contestants are demanding €400,000 in compensation for their efforts, including overtime at the luxury beach resort under orders from producers.

Jérémie Assous, the lawyer representing the contestants said: "It's incredibly tough, it's like a film shoot, only the conditions are much harder. You have to work from 7am to 3am every day. You have an activity every 20-30 minutes, nothing is left to chance so it's very difficult to leave the compound.

"Their passports are confiscated, the site is protected by armed guards, they can't leave. They have no phones, no access to the internet, they are totally cut off during filming."

Assous represents more than 300 former reality-show contestants, and has won almost 150 cases.

He said more turned up at his office each day, some complaining of overwork and sleep deprivation on set.

In total, more than 1,000 French people have appeared on the nation's top reality TV shows, and Assous believes increasing numbers of them now want financial compensation.

"Production companies have profited for years from these people, now it's time to pay out," he said.

TV executives are facing claims over some of France's biggest shows, including L'Amour est dans le Pré, the French version of the UK's The Farmer Wants a Wife, in which the bashful and lovesick inhabitants of a forgotten, rural France have become household names.

France came relatively late to reality TV, with its first Big Brother-style show broadcast in 2001, but as audience figures and advertising revenues boom, bosses are increasingly adapting foreign shows including the UK's Wife Swap and Supernanny.

Cooking contests such as Un Dîner Presque Parfait, a kind of French Come Dine With Me, are hugely popular, and the Dutch-Belgian-inspired Pékin Express, in which hapless couples race each other to hitch-hike across the developing world, has become a massive hit.

The private French channel TF1, which makes L'Île de la Tentation and other reality show, has argued that although work contracts for reality stars are now a legal requirement, the contestants were being themselves and "living a personal experience".

The appeals court hearing this week showed that TF1, owned by a close friend of the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had been supported by government ministers, including the culture minister who backed a special TF1 reality TV charter instead of work contracts.